Stardew Valley's appetising new mod overhauls the cooking experience

It's safe to say that cooking in Stardew Valley is a bit rubbish. Click a few times and you've magically made a meal Gordon Ramsey would give you a backhanded compliment on. While some small quality-of-life changes came with the new 1.5 update, it's still one of the more overlooked aspects of an otherwise wonderful game. But now, a new mod is looking to change that.

Thanks to Nexus Mods user bblueberry, The Love of Cooking mod gives your kitchen cookbook a shiny new makeover, with plenty of new additions and quality-of-life upgrades. The new cooking menu adds a search and filter system as well as the ability to toggle whether or not you want to use gold-star ingredients. You can also bulk-craft recipes up to nine at a time.

Meals now dynamically heal over time depending on how much health you have, offering a slower release when topped up and give a much-needed healing boost when you're being battered by cave monsters. The rate at which these recipes heal is determined by the new cooking skill, with higher levels offering faster healing. It also affects the chances of food burning, if you wish to opt-in to a more stressful culinary experience.

Stardew valley mod — (Image credit: bblueberry)

The community centre gets a new challenge too, requiring you to deliver a sleuth of food to the forest Junimos in return for some kitchen upgrades. There's also some general recipe balancing, plus new crops like carrots and cabbage. It's a nifty little addition to the overall Stardew Valley experience, making cooking a little more relevant than it is now.

The modding community has been booming since the game's release back in 2016, despite there being no official Steam Workshop (so always mod with caution — some may break your game.) We've compiled a list of some of Stardew Valley mods to further improve your experience in Pelican Town.

Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.